'We’ve built nearly two thirds of the world’s biggest cities within just a metre or so of sea level, which today is rising at nearly twice the rate of only 25 years ago.'

WIRED

I’m a climate scientist. Every day, I look at how our energy sources and our consumption habits are affecting our planet. And every day, I’m frustrated by how many people consider the idea of factoring climate change into their decisions to be an unaffordable luxury at best, and an unnecessary evil at worst.

But my hope for the next decade is not that climate change will move higher up our priority lists. Instead, I hope we realise that the reason for all of us to care about a changing climate is because it has an impact on everything we already care about: political stability and a healthy economy, our own health and welfare, the wellbeing of those less fortunate than us and ultimately the ability of this planet to continue to support our civilisation as we know it. If climate change continues unchecked, it is our collective fate – not the planet’s – that hangs in the balance.

Advertisement

How did this threat arise? It began with our comfortable belief that the world is a never-ending expanse, capable of absorbing infinite amounts of pollution, plastic and more. It grew as we developed a habit of treating the atmosphere and the ocean as a dumping ground for our waste. And today, the price of this fallacy is coming due, as we have reached, and in some areas already exceeded, our planet’s boundaries.

Yes, the planet has seen more extreme conditions in the past; it will survive. Human civilisation might not. When it comes to climate change, we have built our vulnerability into the very fabric of our society. Climate has never changed this fast and, because of that, we’ve become complacent. We’ve delineated outdated flood zones based on how rain used to fall; we’ve parcelled out and over-allocated our arable land and water resources; and we’ve built nearly two thirds of the world’s biggest cities within just a metre or so of sea level, which today is rising at nearly twice the rate of only 25 years ago.

Read next

Tropical forests are dying. Seed-slinging drones can save them

ByPeter Guest

The UK is among the European countries most vulnerable to sea-level rise, with some 78 per cent of the population living within 50km of the coast. London’s primary defence, the Thames Flood Barrier, is already 35 years old, and now, in the age of rising seas, is due for an upgrade. Climate change’s impacts can be observed across the country, from hotter summers and wetter winters to shifting rainfall patterns and more frequent flooding events. December 2015 was the UK’s wettest in recorded history, with climate change taking what already would have been a very wet month and making it one for the record books. Climate change also made last summer’s record heatwave far more likely to occur. And all around the world, we’re seeing similar patterns as climate change loads the weather dice against us, making heatwaves more frequent and more severe, heavy downpours more common, tropical cyclones and hurricanes stronger and their rainfall more intense and wildfire seasons lasting longer with the resulting fires burning a greater area.

We now need to confront this challenge by sustained and collaborative action with one common goal: to eliminate our carbon emissions as soon as possible and replace our dependence on coal, oil and gas with clean sources of energy that don’t produce carbon pollution. This means solutions large and small, mundane and inspiring. We must come at this problem from every angle, including establishing the public will to act. We could have the best science and the best policies in the world, but if we don’t have the public will behind them, it won’t be enough.

Advertisement

The UK can take a lead in this global revolution and it has already made amazing strides. In 2017, it celebrated its first coal-free day since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Last year, renewables generated a full 33 per cent of power across the country, and demand for electricity fell to the lowest level since 1994 thanks to the widespread adoption of more efficient technologies, such as LED light bulbs.

But we need to aim higher. In the next ten years, we need to understand that accounting for climate change isn’t a luxury or an evil: it’s an essential part of every decision we make. And over the next decade, that understanding must motivate us to flip the balance between fossil fuels and clean energy, so we’re getting the majority of our energy to heat our homes, power our cars and run our factories from clean sources such as wind, solar, geothermal and more. Only then will we wake up to a world in 2029 that is one we will be able to live in.

Katharine Hayhoe is director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University